Top > Webmaster > 2006 > December > 2006-12-18

China Censorships Move to Online Gaming

After messing with what people read online, the Chinese authorities are now meddling with what Chinese citizens play or do not play. The online game industry is blooming in China, and as broadband connection to the net becomes accessible, the number of people playing online grows accordingly. China`s officials decided that some of the games are featuring forbidden religious or political content and should be banned. Distributors in China are now forced to closely monitor the content of the games they are offering, and rate them for it.

Chinese authorities already control China`s newspapers, television and other media channels. The main concern is for political material that does not follow the government`s line will be made public. China`s censorship issue made headlines when the country asked the search engine Google to restrict its search engine before offering it to Chinese citizens. The whole story broke, when some of the imported games were `causing troubles` by referring to religious material or territorial disputes, and now, it seems that the process is recreating itself with the online gaming industry.

China has about 23 million online game players, and the industry is generating revenues of 7 billion Yuan, which are about $850 million. It appears that distributors did not show the complete pictures when applying for games to be approved, and many games with `foul` content ended up on the market. With the new regulations, the number of available games will surely drop, but it`s early to tell what will be the exact impact on the online games market in China.